Venger and I were in my real-life bedroom, in my bed. Neither bright nor dim, a natural white light filled the room. A white sheet was half crumbled between us and half covered us. We were both fully dressed. He appeared just as he does in the cartoon. I think we had been wrestling on the bed. Nothing too rowdy; very light and playful. But then I stopped us, suddenly, having sensed something. Venger propped himself on his left elbow, to my right, and I was propped on my right, facing him.�Give me your hand,� I said.
He gave me his right hand, and I took it with my left hand and guided it to my left cheek. It was such a color of blue, more like a turquoise. I touched his palm to my cheek and moved it along my face. He watched with such an expression of wonderment on his face, like he worried he�d ruin the moment if he dared to move or speak. Then I bent his fingers to make his sharp nails, which were a darker turquoise than his flesh, gently scratch my cheek.
The more I moved his hand and nails along my cheek, the more I�d sense of his past, his childhood. I spoke without knowing what I was saying, but I saw that he was listening intently. I started having visions of him in his youth, and one vision became a dreamlike reality.
I was there in the village where he grew up. I saw him as a boy with thick, wavy brown hair, wearing a simple brown tunic and walking through the village square on a sunny day. He was born without eyes, and relied on many in the village to help him. Despite his deformity, he was a friendly child and had learned to cope with his disability. He was well-liked, and the shopkeepers and deliverymen always talked to him when he�d walk by. Then the dream changed and the Venger-angle was lost.
